


the omen

by gardensong



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bi Steve Harrington, Other, and they were roommates.., basically another steve gay crisis...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 14:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardensong/pseuds/gardensong
Summary: “You look guilty,” his roommate said accusatorily as he pulled off his gloves. “You’ve got your guilty face on.”Steve shook his head energetically, causing the flakes of snow that had not yet melted to fling out of his hair. “No, I do not.”





	the omen

**Author's Note:**

> another one of those totally self-indulgent steve-robin heart-to-hearts my soul craves so so badly  
i wrote this right as i finished season 3 a few months ago. going through my drafts and deciding to post what i can
> 
> title from camp cope's song the omen, my official steve and robin theme

It was past midnight when Steve entered the rusted brick of the apartment building, no warmer inside than it was out. The walls of the hallway had been yellow, once upon a time, but now they were stained grey by smoke and marred by grubby hand prints of years of people running their hands along the wall as they left and reentered their homes. Steve rubbed his hands together to warm them as he trudged up the stairs in the low light, the soles of his boots still wet with grey snow. As long as the landlady didn’t see him personally tracking sludge into the building, he shouldn’t be in too much trouble.

The two-bedroom he shared with Robin — had been sharing for four months now — was on the sixth floor, which you reached just as you were beginning to question your sanity after going around the staircase another time. Every building in Chicago was so tall, and there were so many staircases and elevators and low ceilings. He didn’t want to miss Hawkins so soon after he’d gotten away, but he did. Pretty much the moment he’d arrived in the tall, grey city he’d missed his hometown; interdimensional monsters, secret Russian bases and all. Okay, that was a lie. Those things he didn’t miss so much. And his face didn’t seem to miss the constant pummeling it always seemed to receive, so at least that was a plus. Living away from his parents, although a little overwhelming, well, that was a plus, too.

He welcomed the unhinged plaque that bared the letter six with a grunt, then trod as lightly as he could until he reached the end of the landing. He stood on the spot where their doormat should be. They hadn’t gotten around to replacing the old one yet, and there was a perfect square of wood paler than the rest before their door.

Slowly, Steve pulled his keys out of his coat pocket, his hand clasped around the group of them so they wouldn’t jangle. They jangled anyway (of course they did) but it wasn’t that bad. As he turned the correct key in the lock, by some kind of godly miracle, the door didn’t creak. It didn’t make a goddamn sound. Steve whispered a quick thanks upwards, but froze with one step through the door frame.

“_ Someone’s _ home late,” said Robin.

She was on the sofa in her very old _ Winnie the Pooh _ pajamas, curled up under a blanket and reading a book. On the floor beside her lay her famous midnight snack that consisted of handfuls of dry cereal straight out of the box.

Shit.

“Heyyy, roomie,” Steve greeted with forced enthusiasm, closing the door behind him and beginning to unravel his scarf.

Robin raised an eyebrow and promptly lay her book open on her lap. There was a freaky huge grey alien face on the cover, and the title read _ We Are Not Alone! _. She had admitted to Steve that she had started reading more sciencey conspiracy books after their first ‘fun’ little adventure, and this had prompted him to wonder if he should read more books. Of course, soon thereafter he just accepted that reading just wasn't his thing and moved on.

“You look guilty,” his roommate said accusatorily as he pulled off his gloves. “You’ve got your guilty face on.”

Steve shook his head energetically, causing the flakes of snow that had not yet melted to fling out of his hair. “No, I do not.”

“What did you do? Did you ditch some poor girl again?”

Steve gave her an exasperated look. “I _ told _ you, that was an accident! I thought she was on the bus already—“ he stopped himself and shook his head. He wasn’t doing this again. “Nevermind.”

“Oh, so, _ now _ I’m intrigued,” she said. She closed her book, an old receipt for Chinese food marking her place, and leaned forward.. “What don’t you want me to know about?” At Steve’s alarmed look, she said, “You were sneaking.”

“I wasn’t sneaking to _ avoid _ you... I was trying not to bother you, in case you were asleep, or something.”

“What do you mean, or something?” she asked. Steve only had to raise an eyebrow for her cheeks to turn pink. “That was one time! One time!”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, “One very _ loud _ time...” clearly enough for her to hear him.

“Okay, fine, I don’t care,” Robin snapped, her freckled face almost completely red. She picked her book back up and propped it up on her knees.“If that’s how you want to play it, I don’t care. I’m done caring. Happy?”

Steve simply shrugged, waving an arm vaguely. “Sure.”

“Good.”

“Cool.”

Robin began reading, and Steve began moving toward his bedroom. Their shared apartment wasn’t anything impressive. The walls were an even sicklier yellow than the ones in the hall, and neither Steve nor Robin were the tidy type. The front door lead straight into the living room, to which the kitchen was attached on the right, and on the far wall were two doors leading to two bedrooms, a television set sat between them. The furniture was all pretty wrecked (Steve had found bedbugs in his mattress his first night there, Robin a family of mice living under the sink), and the place almost always reeked of weed, although that was their own doing. When Robin’s parents had come to visit, they had kept the windows open for a whole day to try and ventilate the place. They had been high then.

But, bed bugs and gaudy wallpaper aside, living there wasn’t all that terrible. The girl on the sofa, Steve had to admit, was a big part of that.

He didn’t make a big show about dragging his feet underneath him, but he could tell that Robin was putting in the effort to ignore him.

“Hey,” Steve said, stopping on the other side of their tacky glass coffee table, “how did you know?”

Robin didn’t look up from her book. “How did I know what?” 

“Uh... you know.”

Robin raised her eyebrows and bobbed her head slightly. She still wouldn’t look up, but Steve could tell that her annoyance was waning.

“That you, uh... liked girls.”

That got her attention.

“Why?”

“Curious. I don’t know.”

Robin looked as if she was going to say something. Then she stopped, closed her book and sat up, swinging her legs over so her feet rested on the floor.

“It’s like... it’s something I’ve always known, really. I always knew, since I was a little girl, that I was different. Made out of different stuff. I could never seem to click in with other people, not really. Not even the band geeks. I feel like... felt like there was something wrong inside of me, messed up. Like I’d been made wrong. And then one day I decided I would stop thinking that and just accepted it.” She shrugged.

Steve nodded, folding his arms across his chest. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“I guess I don’t get…” he began, talking into his own chest, “how you could know that. As a kid.”

“Well, you knew you liked girls as a kid, right?”

“I mean... sure. Sure, yeah.”

Robin sucked on her teeth, then shrugged with one shoulder. “Well.”

“That sucks though.”

“That as a child I was ostracized by western society’s heteropatriarchal rules to the knowledge of none of my peers or a single member of my family? Yeah, it sucked.”

Steve’s arms tightened around himself. “Well, I’m sorry. You deserve better.” He corrected himself, “I mean, everyone deserves better, of course.”

Robin smiled.

“So you’ll come to Pride with me this year?”

“Am I... am I allowed?”

Robin laughed. It was loud, and really nice to hear. It released some of the pressure in Steve’s chest. “Of course you’re allowed! What, is the gay police going to come and check your credentials?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, finally letting his arms drop. “I don’t want to, like, get in the way, or anything.”

“You won’t get in the way,” Robin assured him. Then, her expression softened. She reached over the coffee table and pulled on his hand. Her hand was warm compared to his. Her fingers kind of burned. “You okay, Harrington?”

“‘Course I’m okay,” Steve said immediately, kicking the carpet beneath him. Robin wasn’t deterred.

“D’you wanna talk about it?”

Steve sighed and sat down next to her, collapsing upon her blanket cocoon and then straightening it out beneath him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his stomach beginning to twist. She put another hand across his and patted.

“If you want to, I’m here.”

“I know.”

Robin let go of his hand and leaned back, bringing up her legs to cross them beneath her. Steve looked forward, at the poster of San Francisco Robin had stuck over a rip in the wallpaper. He took a deep breath.

“So, I’m in a study group,” he said. Robin waited, but after a few moments, he didn’t continue.

“Yeah...” she egged on, kicking Steve out of his reverie.

“And, like, I told you about Lindsey? Cute, Asian—“

“You don’t need to keep saying she’s Asian.”

“I’m painting a picture.”

Robin gestured for him to go on.

“So, we’re at Lindsey’s house. She lives with her parents, you know, cuz they’re from the city. It’s a big house, have I mentioned she’s rich? Like, richer than my family, even. Which is cool. I’m not saying that rich people are cool, I get that, just that she’s in the study group with the rest of us when she could have a tutor or something.”

“Okay...”

“Okay. So we’re at Lindsey’s, in this dining room. Me, Matt, Clara, Rodrigo, Louise and Fanny.” He realized he’d dug himself into a hole at Robin’s expectant raised eyebrows, so he added, “Rodrigo’s like, Hispanic, the rest are all white. And Lindsey. Duh.”

“Duh,” Robin said, appeased. He continued.

“And so the water jug runs out, you know? We’re studying the Civil War, like in school but in _ way _ more detail, and people start to get thirsty, so I volunteer to head to the kitchen and fill it up.”

“Very chivalrous of you.”

Steve gave her a frustrated look that said, _ Don't patronize me _, and Robin forced her expression into a neutral one.

“I know the house ‘cause I’ve been there before. When I head into the kitchen, though, Lindsey’s brother is there.” He took a deep breath. “He just got back from a run.”

Robin raised an eyebrow.

Steve dropped his hands in his head and groaned.

“I fucked up.”

“What?” Robin said, alarmed.

“I panicked and I fucked up.”

“What did you fuck up?”

Steve was at a loss of how to communicate to Robin exactly how he had fucked up in a way she would understand. It’s not that Robin wasn’t smart, because she was. Way smarter than him. He was worried about how exactly he could express himself in a way that would properly… _ transmit _ what he had been through.

Linsdey’s brother’s head had been in the fridge, his bare back exposed to the elements of the generously heated three-story house. The guy had a strong back, and his skin was flushed. He was wearing shorts and running shoes, and around then was when Steve realized he was staring. Just standing there, staring.

“Hey,” Steve said, suddenly needing to alert the other guy to his presence.

Linsdey’s brother emerged from the fridge to look at him. Steve had seen a shadow of the guy in the hallway once or twice, heard him shuffling around the house, but finally getting a good look at his face was disarming. He was… super good-looking. Steve’s theory that he had been working out was confirmed by the way strands of dark hair was plastered to his forehead, his cheeks a rosey red and… his cheekbones were… something else.

“Oh, hi, there,” Linsdey’s brother said. His teeth were perfect. Was it weird to notice another guy’s teeth?

Steve jump started his route towards the sink, hyper aware that Lindsey’s brothers eyes were still on him. He raised the jug explanatorily with a polite smile and walked into the kitchen island. Not fully… he only knocked his hip against the marble, but he felt the blood rush to his face either way. 

“Whoops,” he laughed. 

“You good?” Linsdey’s brother asked, eyebrows furrowed together.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, turning the faucet. He must be intimidated by this guy’s… whole deal. That was all. The jug was taking a while to fill up, which wasn’t helping matters. “You come around here often?” he found himself saying. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, opened his eyes wide, looking to the side and out of view of Linsdey’s brother, who replied, “Yeah... it’s my house.”

“Oh, yeah.” Steve grinned at him in a way that could only be described as goofy. _ Goofy _. “I like your... shorts.”

Lindsey’s brother laughed with his whole chest and it tore a little bit (just a little bit) of Steve’s breath away.

“Okay,” he said, picking up his coke can. “I’m gonna leave, now.”

“Okay,” Steve nodded, closing the faucet. “See you later.”

Lindsey’s brother was walking out of the room backwards, and he shrugged amiably as he reached the door frame. “It’s kinda late, so... probably not.”

“Tomorrow,” Steve corrected, then shook his head. “I mean, not tomorrow. I come here a lot, is all. Study group!”

“Ohh, you’re in L’s study group,” Lindsey’s brother tilted his head, knocking it gently against the doorframe. His smile showed each one of his perfect teeth. “Makes sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked. But Lindsey’s brother just shook his head, laughed and left.

Back when he returned to the study group and settled the jug back on the table, he heard a shower turn on somewhere in the house and was inexplicably distracted for the rest of the evening. He had to leave early.

“I just wanted to go back in there,” he now said to Robin, “you know, and, like, _ talk to him _.”

“Talk to him,” Robin repeated.

“Yeah. You know.”

“No…”

“_ You know. _”

Robin made a ring with one hand, and slowly put her other index finger through it questioningly.

“Oh, my god!” Steve said, sliding off of the sofa with his hands over his face, sinking until he was cramped between the coffee table and the sofa. “Fuck you, Robin! _ Fuck you _!”

Robin’s cool composure that she had kept up ever so kindly during Steve’s story cracked, and she burst into bright and mirthless laughter.

“And that’s it? That’s your fuck-up?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” He dropped his hands and looked up at her. “_ That’s it? _ Robin, are you fucking with me right now? Being a total goon in front of some guy with his shirt off? _ That’s it _?”

“You’re acting like you _ murdered _ someone, I’m sorry!” she said, teary eyed, doing her best to stifle her own giggles. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Steve, I’m so sorry.” She pushed her blanket aside and sunk onto their carpeted floor beside him. He didn’t flinch when she put her arm around his shoulders. “You’re right,” she said, “this is serious.”

“Okay, now _ you’re _ acting like I murdered someone.”

“Has anything like this ever happened before?”

Steve shook his head. “No, no. No.”

Of course, he’d always had this weird fixation with Jonathan’s knuckles. And elbows. That dude was so pale… it was weird.

But he wasn’t going to tell Robin that. Not while he was sober, at least.

“Then maybe it’s a fluke,” Robin suggested. Steve raised his eyebrows, looking off meaningfully.

“It didn’t _ feel _ like a fluke...”

Robin frowned. Then gasped and shoved Steve away.

“Oh, _ gross _, Steve!”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” he assured her, laughing. (It was what he meant.)

Robin curled herself into a ball kicked at his hip with her bare foot, trying to push him away.

“Get your feet off of me!” Steve protested, trying to fight her off with his elbows.

“Get your man-parts away from me!”

“My _ man-parts _? What are you, five years old?”

“No, I’m a lesbian!”

“Stop,” he raised his eyebrows meaningfully, then bared his hands at her.

“Don’t you dare,” she said, her voice grave. “I’m ticklish!”

“Then get your feet away from me, woman! I didn’t ask for this!”

Robin kicked him one more time for good measure, then climbed back onto the sofa, covering her feet with their blanket again. 

“So, what,” she said, “you think you might like both?”

“Both what?”

“Genders.”

“Huh?”

“Boys and girls? You still like girls, right?”

“I am like, ninety-nine percent sure.”

To double check, he closed his eyes and thought of girls.

“Ew, stop that,” Robin berated.

“I’m not doing anything!”

“You’re doing _ something _. And I don’t like it.” To reiterate this point, she pinched his arm.

“Ow!” Steve cried out, but it didn't hurt that much through his layers of clothing.

“I’m sorry about the whole gay crisis thing,” Robin said, suddenly serious. “It’s... not fun. You should have come home earlier.”

“I... didn’t want to. I thought…” Steve looked at his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, Steve. You can come to me with anything. We fought the _ Russians _ together. Not to mention interdimensional space-monsters.”

“It wasn’t from _ space– _” Steve sighed for the umpteenth time.

“You can’t know that!”

“I _ can _ know that! It’s from the Upside Down, it’s a mirror version of this world–”

“That may be from space!”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“We’ll have to.”

“You can come to me, too. You’re, you know.” Looked at his hands. “My best friend.”

“I think you’re my best friend, too.”

Steve smiled, and finally lifted himself back onto the sofa, crushing Robin’s feet. She didn’t much mind.

“We are so cute. Two best friends.” He wasn’t being ironic, or sarcastic. He felt stupidly giddy all of a sudden. He let himself drop onto Robin’s legs, looking up at her from hip. “I know I’ve said this before, but I will be your beard whenever and wherever, no questions asked. Scout’s honor. As good as a marriage proposal. I will marry you, even. Just say the word.”

Robin looked upwards, hiding her laugh by blowing a strand of hair out of her face. Then she looked back down at him, blue eyes decisive.

“And I’ll be yours,” she nodded.

Steve’s gasped in delight.

“Holy shit.” He raised an imaginary champagne glass, and Robin mimicked him, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Also, sorry to break it to you, but you _ are _ a goon. You weren’t just a goon today. You are a goon in general. I want you to know that.”

Steve blinked at her. She did not take it back.

“Okay, I’m going to bed,” he announced, pushing himself up off the sofa and onto his feet.

“You’re a fucking dork, Harrington!” Robin laughed – fondly, it was _ fondly _ – as he walked around the coffee table, shaking his head. “I know your secret!”

“I’m cool!” Steve said, doing jazz hands before opening his bedroom door. “I’m the coolest person you know!”

“Lenny from 3B is cooler than you’ll ever be!”

Steve rested his head against the door frame and looked back at her. “Lenny thinks he’s John Lennon’s long lost twin brother.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Steve sighed.

“Good night.”

“G’night, bestie,” Robin said, scooping a handful of dry cereal into her mouth.

Although Chicago was cold, and their apartment's heating system left a lot to be desired, Steve felt inexplicably warm as he closed his bedroom door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


End file.
